Apollo XVIII re-interprets mankind’s relationship with space exploration in the electronic age. At the close of the Apollo program and the dawn of journeys to Mars, as expedition technologies segue from hybrid manned-electronic to virtual models, the NASA Program acts as a metaphor for the shift from physical to surrogate modes of exploration. Apollo XVIII presents the countdown to an imagined lift-off of a Saturn V rocket across Times Square’s spectacular screens. The fictional mission combines both real, archival footage and virtual renderings to present a new collective viewing experience that will place the public at the foot of a new frontier.

The art of Hudinilson Urbano Junior (São Paulo, 1957 – 2013) emerged in the late 1970s, when Brazilian cultural production was stifled by the military dictatorship, and the avant-garde Concretist project of blending art and life had been appropriated by the bohemia. In a context in which the very few extant museums and galleries were presided over by the establishment, and the only interventions in public space had to assume the posture of a guerrilla action (Hudinilson Jr was originally part of the collective 3NÓS3 who, among their many performances, bagged monuments around the city), the artist turned to the intimate domain of his own body: by using a Xerox machine he accessed, reproduced and learned about every single detail of his anatomy. “Already from the beginning, the topic of my work was the body,” says Hudinilson Jr in one of his last interviews. “If a person is alone with a Xerox machine, what is the first thing this person will do? […] I first Xeroxed the hand, then the face — but then also all the rest. […] I would close the door, undress and continue my explorations.”

The exhibition at the Flash Art NY Desk brings together a constellation of works, mostly from the 1980s, which all insist on Hudinilson Jr’s obsession with the male body. Collages, photographs, found objects and sculptures, along with the trademark Xeroxes, allow for a scrutiny of the traits of virility, from clichéd representations of gay pornography to abstractions that result from the feverish process of enlarging, reframing and collaging together pictures of the artist’s own body. The narcissistic afflatus, which Hudinilson Jr always intuitively recognized as the thrust of his practice, can also be recognized as an empirical exploration of his queer identity — an impending onanism that exhausts the political gesture by imitating a sexual encounter that can only be nonproductive: hence, the artist’s posição amorosa, his “sex position,” fosters little more than the “exercise” of reproducing the self.

How does our relationship to a geographic place feed into the concept of our identity? Grappling with this question, the New York Art Residency & Studios (NARS) Foundation is delighted to present a group exhibition Unearthing Roots, Foraging Self, curated by Margaret Flanagan and including work by José Arenas, Pia Coronel, Kyoung eun Kang, Viviane Rombaldi Seppey, and Kara J. Schmidt. New York City is distinctive in that it is home to over eight million people, comprised largely of “immigrants,” those who have moved here, who bring with them their own historical groundwork. This personal history is the foundation of their identity, and while they become New Yorkers through location, their roots are embedded in the land from which they have come.

The artists in this exhibition utilize different processes and materials to explore the effect of place on identity. José Arenas spent his childhood split between Northern California and Guadalajara, Mexico, grappling with the history and influences of these two worlds. Arenas contemplates his dual identities by combining cultural symbols, abstract forms, and decorative patterns in paint to create a space that is both narrative and open to viewer response and interpretation. Pia Coronel pushes photography into the third dimension by stripping away layers and returning to nature through the incorporation of found wood. Her return to nature is a search for identity in a world of solitude and separation as we drift further and further from our “original selves.” Kyoung eun Kang studies human encounters and personal relationships in order to comprehend her own identity and the boundaries of familial relationships. Over several months, she forged an intimate relationship with a couple in their seventies through a series of encounters which included sharing a meal, exchanging stories, and taking part the simple acts of daily life. These close encounters are elegantly chronicled in short segments, slowly building a narrative of the lives of two people who have built a life through their shared experience of space. Viviane Rombaldi Seppey’s work is informed by her nomadic lifestyle, exploring the cultures and places from her position as an “outsider.” Maps and phonebooks, both essentially informed by a geographic area, are manipulated reflections on her personal sense of place in these differing societies and to reconcile that sense with her identity. Kara J. Schmidt examines the cartography of physical and virtual spaces related to her personal history. Utilizing Google Maps, Schmidt slowly eradicates and flattens the geographic spaces where she once lived and studied, allowing the viewer to understand this abstract space in a different way. Through myriad methods, each artist has unearthed their own path of remembrance as they traverse the terrain of NYC.